My way with words
Will never be enough
To turn my weakness into confidence
To twist my self-doubt into any kind of self-worth
Just because
I know how to make words seem pretty
Does not mean
I know how to feel like I am
Like I am ****
Like I am anything to be desired
My ability to write love poems
Is the closest thing I will ever have
To love itself
Is the closest thing I will ever have to stability
I am always inbetween
Always temptress
Never only
Only lover on the side
I crave to be more
Crave to be cradled by hands
That are not just temporary
I have never known permanence well
And am sick of watching people go
Sick of goobyes
Of false promises
Of not now but later
Of we'll be together someday
I do not live in light of the future
Only now
Only present
Day by day
Again and again
I have been told
That eventually I will be the sole patron of an unvacant heart
But waiting is not my strong suit
And I have sacrificed too much already
Without receiving anything in return
I give away parts of me
And save nothing for myself
I do not know the outcome of it all
But if I could write my own destiny
If I could write my own romance novel
I would put myself in happy ending
Put myself in his arms
And never leave.

I don't know
What your voice sounds like at 4am
Or how your hair looks
After a restless night of movement
Of midnight caressing
Of hands tangled in limbs
I don't know
The rhythm of your chest
The up and down
Or the pattern of your heartbeat
How it would sync up with mine
If our breathing would become concierto
Would become music
I don't know
How your lips would feel against my neck
How your stubble would feel brushing my cheek
Your warm breath
On my frigid skin
I don't know
How your tongue tastes
After it has been soaked in whiskey
After it has traced the outline of my own
I don't know
How your face looks in the morning light
Don't know
If your body becomes silhouette to sunrise
I don't know a lot
About what it is like
To be with you
But I think
I would like to.

I have been wanting
To wash my mouth out with soap
Bathe in arsenic
Shower in ethanol
Let it burn against my skin
I have been trying
To rid myself of every ounce of him
I have been picking at my skin
Pulling at my insecurites
Wondering how anyone
Could ever want someone like this
Worrying if anyone
Will ever want someone like this
Will ever want something that has been broken so many times before
I have reattached my limbs
Too many times to count
My wounds are not visible enough
To ward off admirers
But every word that slips out of my mouth
Is tangled with the weight of story
******* with the lines of a revelation
That I will never be able to fully write
I wonder
If every suffering was glued to my skin
Would you still find me beautiful
If my tattoos were passage to destruction
Would you still want to cross paths
I will never be a blank canvas
I have far too many paint splattered stains to ever be new again
I will never be a clear picture
I will never be art making history
I am only Pompeii in my destruction
In my catalysmic nature
But I am building myself back up
From the ash I've kept inside me
Rooting myself deeper
So I can learn how to stretch my arms out further
So I can learn to trust
I am hopeful
That there is future brighter than past
That salvation
Will be easier to swallow
If it is handed to me
By loving hands.

I don't sleep well
Most nights I wake up repeatedly
In hot air and panic
In midnight intervals
My mind overtaking my capacity to drift off
And nightmares overtaking dreams
I don't sleep very well
But I think I could
With your arms wrapped around me
Skin folding into mine
Hands moving down the trail of my spine
I think I could
With your breath in my ear
And palms along my curves
In the spaces of my back
I think I could
If waking up
Meant rolling over
To kiss your lips
If it meant
Tracing the lines of your body
And learning every part of it
I think I could sleep comfortably
If I had you
Next to me.

Do you remember
The first time you held somebody's hand
Felt the way their skin pulsed against yours
How your heart attempted to escape from your chest
And your stomach became home to 10 million moths
Flying into the light all at once
Do you remember
The nervous laughs
And the smile that lay between pigmented cheeks
Drawn from admiration
And bliss
How you never before found glow
In a lantern not your own
Do you remember
The lips that first wiped you of your sanity
How they brushed against yours with  seemingly perfect unision
Replayed over and over again
Heart reminding brain
Reminding body
How good it felt to be loved
To be touched
If that could be bottled
If any of the first time nostalgia and discovery
Could be placed in a glass jar
And preserved
Than we would need no reminder
Of how it felt to feel
And how it felt to be
Alive.

I am not the girl you marry
I am the girl who 10 years from now
Will out of nowhere cross your mind
In the midst of contentedness
And have you wondering
What happened to her
I am not the girl you swear forever to
I am the girl who you'll think of
When you ***** your finger on the diamond ring
You bought for the one you plan on spending your life with
I am not the girl you have to try to forget
I am not memorable
In any particular way
But one day you will think of me
When you're sitting in a bar
And the short blonde girl next to you
Orders a glass
Of whisky.

The first time you are told
That you are beautiful
You will not believe it
You will swallow it down harshly
Like a glass of ethanol
Force a mona lisa smile on your unknowing face
And say thank you
Say it like it's something you're used to hearing
Like it actually means something
Like it doesn't hurt as much as it does
Compliments aren't supposed to hurt
But you were taught them backhanded
Raised on anticipation
Expecting to feel a sting after every one you're given
Conditioned to regard praise as unfamiliar
As foreign territory
Body only knowing warzone
And battlefield
Not knowing genuine
Body was never taught how to be loved
How to love
You were too busy trying to learn to love men with rough hands and heavy breath
Too busy giving away parts of you in hopes of getting something back
And what was left over never felt like enough
Felt hollow
Felt maybe you were never meant to feel like you are important
Or desirable
Or anything for that matter
So the next time you are called pretty
Or something of the kind
You will have mastered the art of acceptance
Will have memorized the routine
Will be able to swallow it down faster
Quicker
Will know how to bury it deep inside of you
Yet still bare a vacant hole underneath all of that skin
You were told at a young age
That there was too much of it
That nobody could ever love thick
That they only want thin
When he tells you that you're body is flower and stem
Is garden
Is beauty
Is something to be admired
You will feel the same kind of longing
You have felt so many times before
A kind of homesickness
For a body that has never quite felt like home
Too many residents have attempted to tear it down
Have set it aflame
Have tried to burn you to the ground
It takes someone who treats you well
To realize how incompetently the rest did
It takes someone with intentions of gold
To realize that the rest were just rust
Flattery may not be a language
That you will ever fully comprehend
But it will always be one that is
Unavoidable
You will learn to nod your head
Learn to agree with a cause you might never truly believe in
Might as well accept the inevitable
So when you are told
That you are beautiful
Do everything in your power
To hide your disbelief
Your skepticism
Your complete disregard towards them
Your inability to understand how anyone could ever possibly love something like you
When you are told
That you are worthy
Do your best
To smile
And make it seem like you already know
Like you have known it
For a very
Long time.